For some
people, it seems, all you have to do to convince them of the free enterprise
nature of something is to label it “market,” and so we have the spawning of
such grotesque creatures as “market socialists” or “market liberals.” The
word“freedom,” of course, is also a grabber, and so another way to gain
adherents in an age that exalts rhetoric over substance is simply to call
yourself or your proposal “free market” or “free trade.” Labels are often
enough to nab the suckers.
And so, among
champions of free trade, the label “North American Free Trade
Agreement”(Nafta) is supposed to command unquestioning assent. “But how
can you be against free trade?” It’s very easy. The folks who have
brought us Nafta and presume to call it “free trade” are the same people who
call government spending “investment,” taxes “contributions,” and raising taxes
“deficit reduction.” Let us not forget that the Communists, too, used to call
their system "freedom.".....
If authentic
free trade ever looms on the policy horizon, there’ll be one sure way to tell.
The government/media/big-business complex will oppose it tooth and nail. We’ll
see a string of op-eds “warning" about the imminent return of the 19th
century. Media pundits and academics will raise all the old canards against the
free market, that it’s exploitative and anarchic without government
“coordination.” The establishment would react to instituting true free trade
about as enthusiastically as it would to repealing the income tax......
In the United
States, this* (Editor's note - *International treaties) has taken the form of transferring legislative and judicial
authority away from the states and localities to the executive branch of the
federal government. Nafta negotiations have pushed the envelope by centralizing
government power continent-wide, thus further diminishing the ability of
taxpayers to hinder the actions of their rulers.......To Read More....
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